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Beta Review - Guardian Fighter Centric

grimfallgrimfall Member UncommonPosts: 1,153

Before I get into this, I want to thank the other MMORPG members for doing similar posts when playing Betas that not everyone had access to, so thanks to all of you who have and keep up the good work on your fellow player's behalf.

 I've played a guardian to level 27, a rogue to 11 and a cleric to 6.

1. Character Creation:

The good:  The character creation is a lot like Age of Conan.  You pick a race (for one of the 6 available with the Drow obviously there buy greyed out) and a sex.  The race previews show you the bonuses for each class. For each race (besides human which gives you a +2 to any ability score) you get and option of +2 to two different abilities and +2 to a core ability.  For example Tieflings are charismatic, so they always get +2 to Charisma, and can choose to add +2 to Constitution or +2 to (Dexterity?).  Each race has a couple other bonuses - combat or resistance bonuses.  Then you pick your class.  Three are currently available, and the Greatweapon Figher is greyed out.   The Age of Conan part comes in when you design your look.  You choose a face from one of about 12 pre-sets, and can get in there and scale each face and head dimension and scale your torso and limbs.   It's not like Champions Online where you can choose to be 3 feet tall or 9 feet tall.  You have maybe 1 foot of height range for each race.

The bad: When "roll" your scores it consists of two options - a min/max option or an option where you trade 1 point in your primary ability for 2 points in your secondary and 2 points in one that is not very  meaningful.

2. Graphics and Aesthics

The good: Yeah it looks good.  They really did a good job of integrating the common TSR/Wizards of the Coast Forgotten Realms look into Neverwinter.  I play on a Alienware laptop (Oct 2012) and had have the settings on about 80% max, but the textures, shadows particle effects look nice.  The character models all look good, and the animations I think are fluid and natural looking.  You can watch a mob start his special ability (attack or spell) and have a pretty good idea of what he's about.  The monsters and NPCs look very good.  Usually the bigger the badder, which not being exactly in line with AD&D, works well with the pace of combat.  The Player characters look distinct, at least as long as they're not the same class/race combonation.

The city of Neverwinter feels bustling.  About 80% of the inhabitants are there just for aesthetics (and maybe Foundry quest giving), some of them talk, many of them move about.  There aren't any children, but Neverwinter is a fronteir town, so that may be a conscious decision.  You'll see birds or occasionally butterflies flying around.

The Bad: In group combat the particle effects go off so often that it's just a sort of constant flashing of light - so much so that it's difficult to see what the hell is going on if you're in the middle of it (and Guardians are).   The attacks animations lock you in until the attack is complete, except sometimes you can go from about 70% done and then jump to the next one (usually a block in my case).  It's a little jarring but not immersion breaking.

There's big numbers floating in the air during combat.  I guess they have a purpose, but it's pretty obvious that they're aiming towards a console/eastern crowd here.  Bad for me, probably good for others.

A character at 5% health looks the same as a character at 100% health.  There's no bloody stumbling around or being badly burned etc.

Your camera is locked in on an over the shoulder view from about 20 feet back.  You can move in up and down, but not forward or back. When a wall obstructs it, it zooms in, but sometimes you get jammed in a corner and can see little or nothing.  This is particularly problematic when the monsters are getting ready to launch their specials and you cannot see the "tell" on the ground.

3. Sound: Disclaimer: I am not an audiophile. 

The Good: I usually turn the music in games down or off, and I turned it down here.  It sounded about right, sort of epic scored, not too modernistic. Combat sounded like it should, pretty much.  When you are walking inside on a wooden floor, you hear the reverbaration of your boot heels.

The Voice acting is generally top notch.  It Peters our around level 22 or so.  The main guy you work with for the first 30 levels doesn't have any voice acting.  I assume that there's a reason for this (like a lot of changed dialogue, or they're still working with an actor.

The Bad: You don't always hear the crunch of blade on body like in a game like DDO.

4. Gameplay:

The Good: The combat is basically Diablo III.  You have right and left mouse click attacks.  And then you get (eventually) 8 more hotkeys to use.  3 are standard MMO fair cooldown special attacks.  2 are "daily" attacks that you can use about every other encounter, and then there are three inventory slots you can put heal potions in.  Your character development is again, Diablo III.  You choose which specail attacks and in theory which right/left click attacsk (broken for Guardian currently) to use.

The combat is engaging and fun  You cannot run and cast/shoot or swing and shoot.  The MMORPG guys talked about this in their streamcast.  Some people may not like it, but it adds "weight" to the combat as well as  a strategic element.  The monsters have special attacks which vary pretty widely, both in size, and time  you have to react to them.  The monsters just like the characters are ranged DPS, Tanks, healers (not as common) and melee DPS.  .   There is a dodge (cleric and rogue) or block (Guardian) mechanic which helps you to get out of the way, especially for the special attacks, which are telegraphed with big  red circles, semi-cirlces,  cones or squares on the ground.

The monsters typically come in groups of 3 to 4.  Usually if it is 4, there's one Tough in there.  Sometimes it's just three trash mobs, and sometimes you windup with 2 toughs, or two groups of 1 Tough and 3 trash each.  Boss fights can be solo, but typically there are trash adds, and sometimes whole groups of adds including a tough (so you're fighting 1 boss, 2 toughs and 6 trash).

Every 10 levels you gain 2 ability points to add.  For my guardian fighter I have been putting these into DPS abilities (Str and Dex) - trying to give me some more utility and make solo content easier. Mousing over ability scores shows you what they do, and how much a bonus you get.

There are cool AD&D touches, like secret rooms and rooms behind curtains that aren't immediately ovbvious.  The Guardian class gets the dungeoneering skill which can be used to open secret areas.

There are traps which usually I find by walking onto.  Because you don't always run around at 100% health, they can kill you!  Rogues can see and disarm them.  It may have something to do with their wisdom ability score (speculation based on ability description, DDO experience and a little game play).

There's basically three levels of monsters.  Trash, Tough and Boss.  Trash usually takes about 1 special to kill, or 3 left clicks.  Tough takes about 20 seconds, and Bosses take a minute or two. At level 27 I've probably died 5 times, once due to my daily power not going off (drained but didn't do anything - specifically heal me).

Your character has no hit point regeneration, unless he's at a camp fire, which are parsed occasionally throughout adventuring areas.  There are some regeneration items, but they work so slowly that they're a non-factor.  There are at this time lots of heal potions - more than I use that drop form monsters and chests.

You get a mount at level 20. You cannot fight on it.  It helps you move faster.  You summon it from hotkey 6.  Standard fare.

I got my pet at level 17. I chose a healer cleric as my pet.  They're not very powerful, acting almost more like a buff than a true companion.  You can play without one if you like.

The Bad: The combat is basically Diablo III.  If you don't like that, and don't like the character progression system, you won't like this. There are a lot more tells and special attacks by the beasties, but that's about the only difference that comes to mind.  You are locked into your attack animation until the animation is complete or nearly complete.  You cannot run and cast or throw knives at the same time.

You have quest hubs. Or something close to it.  I don't mind this.  It feels like AD&D when you finish an adventure you go back to town, sell your stuff and get another one.  It's a hub and spoke system, similar to CoH or Champions online.  You can also teleport to a dungeon using the dungeon finder tool.  Convenient, but lame.

You have to set your pets off for traning every time they level up. Since I played so much of the game without a pet, maybe more than I needed to, it didn't bother me much, but it is a weird mechanic.  Each time they run off to level up, they run off for a longer and longer time.  I think to get level 13 she was gone for 30 minutes.  There's no trade-off for not having one.  I think personally there should be, so that they're more optional for a power gamer.

You don't seem to get exp for grinding mobs. I am not sure if I understand the exp mechanic.  Sometimes you get a lot of exp for finishing a quest, sometimes you don't.  I gained 2 levels by turning in one quest.  It could be that your monster killing is all added up and given to you at the end, but I think not.  It's an AD&D mechanic to give you the exp at the end of an adventure, but you should get more for killing more monsters.  It's not a typical MMO mechanic.  DDO behaves similiarily.

The areas are pretty closed in.  There are shared outdoor zones, but you don't share the indoor zones unless you are in a party.  There is no Eastern Karanas here, and you won't really walk up to someone and invite them to join a party because there's no need.  There are some tougher mobs, and sometimes other players will jump in while fighting a tough ogre and you get adds, but there's no need to group, except in the dungeons where you cannot get in until you have a full group.

5. Crafting: I do not believe it is implemented yet.  If it is, they haven't lead me by the nose to it like they did with other game aspects.  The monsters and chests (more frequently) drop normal and rare crafting loots.  It goes into your special crafting bag.  And there it sits.

6. Itemization, Money, and the Cash Shop.

The Good: Right now, you don't need to spend any money to enjoy the game. RIGHT NOW.  I am skeptical that they don't balance it down so that you're tempted at least to buy healing potions, which you do need to ge through combat currently.  For free you get, all the adventures, the 3 classes, the races, the ability to buy a  horse at level 20 and enough money to buy it.  You can buy rare (blue) armor with gold dropped from the monsters. You earn some Astral Diamonds adventuring.  I think I got about 1800 so far.

The Bad: The gear is all class specific, which means that currently 4 in 5 armor/weapon drops are vendor or maybe AH items. If this trend continues it will get worse and worse as more classes are added.  You have to use identify scrolls to identify about 2/3 of these drops if you want to sell them for more than 1 copper, or if you want to find out if they're an upgrade for you. I know Identify is a AD&D/Wizardy tennant but, this feels a little bit like a money grab, since you have to buy these scrolls and it tends to take up more bag space (and eventually bag space will probably cost money, based on the Founders Packs).  There's some horse that costs like 4 million astral diamonds, that's 2000 days of free game play.

They did give me some tokens when I finished the first dungeon with my party.  I have two of them.  I wasn't able to find a vendor, but I did find a level thirty vendor who would sell me blue items for 5 tokens.

7. The Foundry

The Good: I did two of these quests and they worked.  The writing wasn't very good (one 4 stars and one three), but except for some stationary spider issues, there wasn't any problems.  I got exp and treasure.

The Bad: Not accessible to me at this point, and it's my main interest in the game.

8. PVP: Don't do it, not sure if it's in yet.  It's got some sort of instant join battleground system.  It's certainly not integral and not open world.

9. Social

The Good: I like the free chat in party.  I cannot believe more MMO's don't have this.

The Bad: It's a solo centric game, so not a lot of communication going on.  You have to put forth all the effort.

10. Stability and Bugs

The Good: I'm on patched Windows 7 64 bit and I haven't crashed.  It's not bug free but it's damned close.

The Bad: I mentioned earlier, that guardians could not equip different L/R mouse button attacks.  There's a bug that makes dungeons not re-set properly.  There are occasional LOS issues with clickies... once I died because my daily either got debuffed or just didn't work. I reported a couple other niggling ones (a wererat got under a grate at one point). Edit* As I log on this morning, I cannot play my guardian because the zone he is in keep dropping him.

In Summary:  I liked it.  I will play it at least through all the PVE content I think. I want to get my hands on the foundry, because that's the main appeal from an old school dungeon master.

Let me know if you have any questions.  I'll be happy to try to answer them.

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Comments

  • plescureplescure Member UncommonPosts: 397
    good read. thx 4 doing this. im still on the fence about this game so posts like this help.

    If someone is talking in general chat in a language you dont understand, chances are they're not talking to you. So chill out and stop bitching about it!

  • MightyChasmMightyChasm Member Posts: 298
    I thought this was still under NDA? 
  • darkhalf357xdarkhalf357x Member UncommonPosts: 1,237

    I dont know. I have not played the game - but have been loosely following (Articles, Opinions, and now subjective beta reviews).

    But if it plays like Diablo III.  It progresses like Diablo III.  And Diablo III is not an MMORPG.  Then....

    Definitely does not look like my cup of tea, which is strange as I thought NeverWinter was an RPG brand.

    image
  • MetanolMetanol Member UncommonPosts: 248
    Originally posted by darkhalf357x

    Definitely does not look like my cup of tea, which is strange as I thought NeverWinter was an RPG brand.

    It's named just "Neverwinter" for a reason. The MMO has nothing to do with the fabled Neverwinter Nights RPG series.

    Learn the difference.

    Neverwinter Nights uses a lightly modified D&D 3.5e ruleset, with D20 being rolled for -every- attack.

    Dungeons & Dragons Online is closer to a "true D&D experience" than Neverwinter MMO. It sticks reasonably close to 3.5e rules, with a full list of skills, feats and what not to pick from, but the combat is still more or less action based, even with the D20 system in the background. DDO also has multiclassing, racial ability bonuses (And Penalties, which Neverwinter seems to have forgotten. Somehow tieflings became charismatic, when they, in past had a -2 charisma.)

     

    This is a topic which just cannot be put short; it's streamlining. Dumbing down. Casualization.

    Neverwinter MMO has thrown D&D ruleset out of the window and mimicked only the abilities from Fourth edition. No longer do we have skills or feats in the 3rd edition style, now feats are talent points ala WoW and everyone has a magical "adrenaline bar" to charge and use epics skillz. Also, magic is unlimited, so pew, pew, pew.

    Launching with 5 classes is a total joke too, even DDO was released with 9! Neverwinter MMO will not have multiclassing. There's no way of making a Warmage at this point. You know? Spellswords, eldritch knights; usually elves with longswords and magic.

    Locking armors to classes is a ridiculous concept in D&D. In 3rd edition rules, anyone could wear -anything- as long as their strenght score allowed it. Now, if you didn't have training for armor, you took serious penalties (implemented correctly in DDO, but removed from NWN for god knows what reason...) Clerics should be able to "downgrade" to leather, if they find an enchanted suit of studded leather what's better than their breastplate. Same goes for Fighters, they should be allowed to pick their armors freely, usually only dual weapon fighters do this, since they have dexterity to gain the most out of light armor instead of always sticking with the heaviest possible.

    In Neverwinter MMO wizards have forgotten Lore completely. This has been in every D&D game since the first Baldur's Gate. Wizards, who know their stuff, should be able to identify magical items without the need for "buying identify scrolls", which is again a ridiculous concept and totally going back on the lore of D&D. Now, I do see Cryptic making money out of this, very much so - just put huge stacks of identify scrolls for sale in cash shop and watch the dollars flow in.

     

    PS. My post is of course biased because I am a 3rd edition fan and pretty much hate the fourth edition. They ruined forgotten realms and they gutted the mage's spell selection down -so- much. I think my biggest problem with fourth edition is that it was so terribly dumbed down, like modern RPGs in general.

    PPS. Despite my negative attitude, I have hope for Neverwinter MMO. It can prove to be a fun game, but it lacks the depth what made D&D something special for me. The character customization in terms of gameplay mechanics.

    We?re all dead, just say it.

  • AderewAderew Member UncommonPosts: 46
    Originally posted by grimfall

    The areas are pretty closed in.  There are shared outdoor zones, but you don't share the indoor zones unless you are in a party.  There is no Eastern Karanas here, and you won't really walk up to someone and invite them to join a party because there's no need.  There are some tougher mobs, and sometimes other players will jump in while fighting a tough ogre and you get adds, but there's no need to group, except in the dungeons where you cannot get in until you have a full group.

    Great review. Could you please tell me more about the areas? Is this game an instanced game, like Vindictus?

    Although after watching the beta review, videos etc i could say that i enjoyed the game but i don't really like the idea that the only place where you can meet other players is inside a city.

     

  • grimfallgrimfall Member UncommonPosts: 1,153

    In Neverwinter MMO wizards have forgotten Lore completely. This has been in every D&D game since the first Baldur's Gate.

    Wizards do  have access to ceratin lore "treasure boxes", but all the classes have their own treasure boxes.  Correct me if I am wrong, but in the Baldur's gate and Icewind Dale games had the Identify spell for the wizard class, which you had to memorize and then cast.  Sort of a pain in the ass mechanic.  Here, all the classes have access to the scrolls.  DDO didn't have any mechanic, because if it did, you would have all the wizards constantly pestered for casting identify, so it's a poor mechanic for a MMORPG.

    In case anyone is mistaken, you will not have to spend $15 a month to have your items identified.  They didn't make the game for free, so if you want to do everything you want all the time, expect to pay some money, but currently  you can buy the idenitfy scrolls with coins you get from killing monsters.  At this point, it's not a problem.  Maybe they'll change it, but probably not that drastically.

  • grimfallgrimfall Member UncommonPosts: 1,153
    Originally posted by Aderew
    Originally posted by grimfall

    The areas are pretty closed in. 

    Great review. Could you please tell me more about the areas? Is this game an instanced game, like Vindictus?

    Although after watching the beta review, videos etc i could say that i enjoyed the game but i don't really like the idea that the only place where you can meet other players is inside a city.

     

    I didn't play very much Vindictus, but I don't think it's the same.  It's more like TOR.  There are open outdoor quest areas (instances), that are shared with other players.  At one point me and my group were in area #5 of the Market, so there were at least 4 other instances of the same area at that time (the market is an adventure area, Protector's Enclave is the safe city zone).  In those areas, there are single instance "dungeons" (caves, buidlings, sewers etc) that you go into solo, unless you're grouped with someone.  You can meet, greet and make friends in the open outdoor area, but it's like Rift  in that these areas don't have a lot of socialization areas, they're pretty much packed with monsters and the monsters respawn quickly.  The zones are much smaller than Rift, though.

    I would guess that the outdoor adenvture areas are only hosting about 10 or 12 players.

    Hope that explains.

  • furbansfurbans Member UncommonPosts: 968
    Originally posted by grimfall

    In Neverwinter MMO wizards have forgotten Lore completely. This has been in every D&D game since the first Baldur's Gate.

    Wizards do  have access to ceratin lore "treasure boxes", but all the classes have their own treasure boxes.  Correct me if I am wrong, but in the Baldur's gate and Icewind Dale games had the Identify spell for the wizard class, which you had to memorize and then cast.  Sort of a pain in the ass mechanic.  Here, all the classes have access to the scrolls.  DDO didn't have any mechanic, because if it did, you would have all the wizards constantly pestered for casting identify, so it's a poor mechanic for a MMORPG.

    In case anyone is mistaken, you will not have to spend $15 a month to have your items identified.  They didn't make the game for free, so if you want to do everything you want all the time, expect to pay some money, but currently  you can buy the idenitfy scrolls with coins you get from killing monsters.  At this point, it's not a problem.  Maybe they'll change it, but probably not that drastically.

    There are consumables that grant proficiency in other classes skill harvesting whatevers.  My cleric could do all the dungeoneering, nature, arcane, theivery with these consumables.

    As for Neverwinter itself... well if you on the fence of the founders pack hold off.  Game is an MMO but if your wanting D&D experiance then you'll be left wanting severely.  I'd stick with DDO rather than this game, this game has more of a Diablo hack and slash feel than the D&D experiance.  Quests are stright up hack and slash without any immersive elements like DDO does with their DM narration or just simple dialogue and traps.

  • MetanolMetanol Member UncommonPosts: 248
    Originally posted by grimfall

    In Neverwinter MMO wizards have forgotten Lore completely. This has been in every D&D game since the first Baldur's Gate.

    Wizards do  have access to ceratin lore "treasure boxes", but all the classes have their own treasure boxes.  Correct me if I am wrong, but in the Baldur's gate and Icewind Dale games had the Identify spell for the wizard class, which you had to memorize and then cast.  Sort of a pain in the ass mechanic.  Here, all the classes have access to the scrolls.  DDO didn't have any mechanic, because if it did, you would have all the wizards constantly pestered for casting identify, so it's a poor mechanic for a MMORPG.

    In case anyone is mistaken, you will not have to spend $15 a month to have your items identified.  They didn't make the game for free, so if you want to do everything you want all the time, expect to pay some money, but currently  you can buy the idenitfy scrolls with coins you get from killing monsters.  At this point, it's not a problem.  Maybe they'll change it, but probably not that drastically.

    I understand the point you're making. If identification was included in the 3rd (or gods, even older) edition style, wizards, bards and intelligent sorcerers would be "socially overpowered", if such a thing can be said.

    DDO however, in my opinion, did this right. If you are building for a massive player base, where some people don't want to work with others and prefer soloing, you have to dumb it down a bit. Removing the identification was a good move in that game, and would've worked in Neverwinter too. Instead of taking the hardcore route, they made it a "cash sink". No matter how cheap it is, it feels silly, as a barbarian, to even know how to use such scrolls. Since, all barbarians are illiterate and all that, according to D&D lore.

    I am not that worried over the cash shop to be honest, but I do see a grim future ahead for Neverwinter. We might not have identification scrolls for sale there, but I am worried that there will be something what will affect the player's performance. Wether that is healing potions or magical boosts to skills. I doubt they would avoid selling such, because such sales make good money, that was my point.

     

    Also, to the topic of these "class based extra loots". Didn't they start in video games with that Lord of the Rings - War in the north game? A terrible idea, in my opinion. D&D has always had secrets and the like, and at least DDO kept to it's roots enough to include search, spot, listen and other skills, even if these weren't (according to my knowledge) rolled, but checked against your total skill modifier.

     

    PS. I also approve selling "flavor" classes in the Shop. What do I mean with flavor classes? Classes, what can make the same job as any "basic" class, but in a different way. See: DDO. Favored souls, artificers, monks and druids are buy only. (Not true, you can unlock Favored souls by playing also, but the rest need to be bought. And I'm saying that's fine, since you still have 9 other classes to pick from and to customize freely.)

    In DDO you could run into rogues wielding great axes. Or paladins dual wielding kukris. Dwarven bard/rangers with dual wielded dwarven waraxes. Halfling rogue/clerics with repeating crossbows. Not going to happen here.

    We?re all dead, just say it.

  • joe2721joe2721 Member UncommonPosts: 171
    Nice review

    image
  • simmihisimmihi Member UncommonPosts: 709
    Awesome review grimfall, covers everything that i wanted to know. Thanks for the effort put into this!
  • bcbullybcbully Member EpicPosts: 11,838
    Thanks OP!
    "We see fundamentals and we ape in"
  • grimfallgrimfall Member UncommonPosts: 1,153

    Originally posted by bcbully
    Thanks OP!

    Originally posted by simmihi
    Awesome review grimfall, covers everything that i wanted to know. Thanks for the effort put into this!

    Originally posted by joe2721
    Nice review

    Originally posted by MightyChasm
    I thought this was still under NDA? 

    Originally posted by plescure
    good read. thx 4 doing this. im still on the fence about this game so posts like this help.

    No, they lifted the NDA for anything the new players this weekend got their hands onto.

    You're welcome all, and thanks for the compliments.

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    Originally posted by Metanol
    Originally posted by grimfall

    In Neverwinter MMO wizards have forgotten Lore completely. This has been in every D&D game since the first Baldur's Gate.

    Wizards do  have access to ceratin lore "treasure boxes", but all the classes have their own treasure boxes.  Correct me if I am wrong, but in the Baldur's gate and Icewind Dale games had the Identify spell for the wizard class, which you had to memorize and then cast.  Sort of a pain in the ass mechanic.  Here, all the classes have access to the scrolls.  DDO didn't have any mechanic, because if it did, you would have all the wizards constantly pestered for casting identify, so it's a poor mechanic for a MMORPG.

    In case anyone is mistaken, you will not have to spend $15 a month to have your items identified.  They didn't make the game for free, so if you want to do everything you want all the time, expect to pay some money, but currently  you can buy the idenitfy scrolls with coins you get from killing monsters.  At this point, it's not a problem.  Maybe they'll change it, but probably not that drastically.

    I understand the point you're making. If identification was included in the 3rd (or gods, even older) edition style, wizards, bards and intelligent sorcerers would be "socially overpowered", if such a thing can be said.

    DDO however, in my opinion, did this right. If you are building for a massive player base, where some people don't want to work with others and prefer soloing, you have to dumb it down a bit. Removing the identification was a good move in that game, and would've worked in Neverwinter too. Instead of taking the hardcore route, they made it a "cash sink". No matter how cheap it is, it feels silly, as a barbarian, to even know how to use such scrolls. Since, all barbarians are illiterate and all that, according to D&D lore.

    I am not that worried over the cash shop to be honest, but I do see a grim future ahead for Neverwinter. We might not have identification scrolls for sale there, but I am worried that there will be something what will affect the player's performance. Wether that is healing potions or magical boosts to skills. I doubt they would avoid selling such, because such sales make good money, that was my point.

     

    Also, to the topic of these "class based extra loots". Didn't they start in video games with that Lord of the Rings - War in the north game? A terrible idea, in my opinion. D&D has always had secrets and the like, and at least DDO kept to it's roots enough to include search, spot, listen and other skills, even if these weren't (according to my knowledge) rolled, but checked against your total skill modifier.

     

    PS. I also approve selling "flavor" classes in the Shop. What do I mean with flavor classes? Classes, what can make the same job as any "basic" class, but in a different way. See: DDO. Favored souls, artificers, monks and druids are buy only. (Not true, you can unlock Favored souls by playing also, but the rest need to be bought. And I'm saying that's fine, since you still have 9 other classes to pick from and to customize freely.)

    In DDO you could run into rogues wielding great axes. Or paladins dual wielding kukris. Dwarven bard/rangers with dual wielded dwarven waraxes. Halfling rogue/clerics with repeating crossbows. Not going to happen here.

    DDO is also an incredibly boring game beyond the character sheet, and set in a god awful campaign setting. Whoever thought Eberron would be a cool DnD MMO world was smoking crack. And a lot of the mechanics were just fluff, not even fluff they were just nothing. My brother got into it some how, and I saw him playing one day and he had his second monitor showing a map of all the traps in the dungeon. I said "Why do you have a map showing you all the traps, you're a rogue right?" he responded "ya but this works better, spotting the traps in game is broken." The multi-classing was neat but most often times you were just gimping yourself and the game was completely bloated with useless skills and points that never should have been put into an MMO.

    Also, Neverwinter is not claiming to be Dungeons and Dragons Online. They are claiming to be an Action MMORPG set in the Forgotten Realms using a loosely adapted 4e ruleset. And it does exactly what they advertise, I had a lot of fun over the weekend.

    The action in Neverwinter is soooo unbelievabley fun compared to DDO its disgusting btw.

    Lastly, there are no Barbarians in Neverwinter(yet). And how does not having items requiring identification make more sense if by your logic some classes are too dumb to even read a scroll? How are they supposed to know what a magical object is right away if they can't even manage to read?

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  • Entris38Entris38 Member UncommonPosts: 401

    Very well written review. I played a trickster rogue to level 22. Played a Cleric and Warrior to 4 and 5, just to get a feel of how they felt to play. I started off feeling kind of "Meh", but quickly became very addicted over the weekend. NW is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be, and I look to play it for a long time.

     

    My system is windows 7 64bit, quad core 965BE, radeon 7870,8gig ram.........I played flawlessly all weekend, was luck enough to run into no bugs or crashes. There was a slight issue with a memory leak, but they did a quick fix on saturday. The leak never affected me, but I was keeping an eye on it for feedback purposes.

  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270
    Originally posted by MightyChasm
    I thought this was still under NDA? 

     No its not. They actually asked players to write about it and post it on their Facebook page.

  • vmopedvmoped Member Posts: 1,708

    Having played this weekend I feel this review sums up my feelings faily well.  The 4 million astral diamonds is a mount upgrade btw.  The developer that was on answering questions would not say what the mount upgrades do (there were three levels of them).  I did not have the issue of having to buy potions on my guardian fighter, but I played very defensively trying to block all the attacks from bosses and tough mobs (which resulted in longer fights).  I also used the healing daily power alot.

    My major concerns thus far are:

    1) The first come, first serve with chests and interactables in dungeons and the 'open world' areas.  You cannot use them while in combat, so you have the typical event where you initiate a fight and another player runs up and takes it.

    2) Linear story line that is the same for every character you roll.  For a game that is selling additional character slots, I loathe repeating the same content for each character.  Hopefully the foundry will eventually eliminate this issue.

    3) Being able to roll need for items you cannot even use in dungeon groups.  Easy to avoid with friends and guildies, but does not help to encourage players to pug.

    4) Traps only appear to annoy every non healing class, to the cleric they are negated by you heal over time.  One thing I did like about DDO was the complicated and deadly traps.  Maybe there are some at higher levels, but up through 30 they were a minor issue.

    5) Mob and companion AI sometimes must get confused because they will just stand still and do nothing while getting pounded upon.

     

    Cheers!

    MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S

  • EiviEivi Member Posts: 96
    No NDA and pushing for Facebook posts?

    i know its for marketing reasons. But seems fairly progressive. I must say that i approve.

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  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270
    Originally posted by vmoped

    Having played this weekend I feel this review sums up my feelings faily well.  The 4 million astral diamonds is a mount upgrade btw.  The developer that was on answering questions would not say what the mount upgrades do (there were three levels of them).  I did not have the issue of having to buy potions on my guardian fighter, but I played very defensively trying to block all the attacks from bosses and tough mobs (which resulted in longer fights).  I also used the healing daily power alot.

    My major concerns thus far are:

    1) The first come, first serve with chests and interactables in dungeons and the 'open world' areas.  You cannot use them while in combat, so you have the typical event where you initiate a fight and another player runs up and takes it.

    2) Linear story line that is the same for every character you roll.  For a game that is selling additional character slots, I loathe repeating the same content for each character.  Hopefully the foundry will eventually eliminate this issue.

    3) Being able to roll need for items you cannot even use in dungeon groups.  Easy to avoid with friends and guildies, but does not help to encourage players to pug.

    4) Traps only appear to annoy every non healing class, to the cleric they are negated by you heal over time.  One thing I did like about DDO was the complicated and deadly traps.  Maybe there are some at higher levels, but up through 30 they were a minor issue.

    5) Mob and companion AI sometimes must get confused because they will just stand still and do nothing while getting pounded upon.

     

    Cheers!

     1) Somewhat agree, also NBG doesn't seem to apply to class based discoveries in dungeons? I can see that being a problem since you can buy items that let you unlock any other classes stuff.

    2) Somewhat agree, but the foundry will fix it in my opinion. All the content scales with you, guessing when it takes off there will be heaps of adventures to explore.

    3) Also agree, I suggested that they limit need rolls to items you can actually wear or use.

    4) Traps didn't bother my rogue :) If you have a rogue in the party they can see them quite easily. Also if you pay attention to the environment they are quite easy to spot even not as a thief.

    5) I think some skills interrupt lesser mobs, but not boss mobs. Causing them to stand still. One of the rogue autoattacks stunlocks normal level mobs, but not harder ones. Thats why they get 2 autoattacks, one that does more damage, and one that does the crowd control.

  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270
    Originally posted by Eivi
    No NDA and pushing for Facebook posts? i know its for marketing reasons. But seems fairly progressive. I must say that i approve.

     The game is pretty much ready to launch. I don't think they really have anything to hide.

  • sibs4455sibs4455 Member UncommonPosts: 369
    Does the game have the same storyline / trap placements / mob placements etc for each class you play?.
  • sketocafesketocafe Member UncommonPosts: 950

    Thanks for this, though I'm afraid I might have to lower my expectations based on it.

    One thing that confuses me is the level numbers you're saying. Like you have a 27 whatever and get mounts at 20. Am I completely wrong about how levels work in DnD now or does this game not mesh up with it? Last I heard you were pretty much godlike if you made it to level 20, and would be hanging out with Gods and Powers and shit, instead of some woods. What's the deal here? Does it hold to DnD levels and I'm out of date or is it just a "have a level so you can feel progression because your number went up," type thing?

  • MetanolMetanol Member UncommonPosts: 248
    Originally posted by sketocafe

    Thanks for this, though I'm afraid I might have to lower my expectations based on it.

    One thing that confuses me is the level numbers you're saying. Like you have a 27 whatever and get mounts at 20. Am I completely wrong about how levels work in DnD now or does this game not mesh up with it? Last I heard you were pretty much godlike if you made it to level 20, and would be hanging out with Gods and Powers and shit, instead of some woods. What's the deal here? Does it hold to DnD levels and I'm out of date or is it just a "have a level so you can feel progression because your number went up," type thing?

    This game has nothing to do with D&D level scale. Because, as we all know, having only 20 (or by the gods, 30?) levels would be boring. So, now it's 50+ levels and WoW-like talent trees (called Feats, which you gain one per level, if I understood right.)

     

    Originally posted by Fendel84M

    DDO is also an incredibly boring game beyond the character sheet, and set in a god awful campaign setting. Whoever thought Eberron would be a cool DnD MMO world was smoking crack. And a lot of the mechanics were just fluff, not even fluff they were just nothing. My brother got into it some how, and I saw him playing one day and he had his second monitor showing a map of all the traps in the dungeon. I said "Why do you have a map showing you all the traps, you're a rogue right?" he responded "ya but this works better, spotting the traps in game is broken." The multi-classing was neat but most often times you were just gimping yourself and the game was completely bloated with useless skills and points that never should have been put into an MMO.

    Also, Neverwinter is not claiming to be Dungeons and Dragons Online. They are claiming to be an Action MMORPG set in the Forgotten Realms using a loosely adapted 4e ruleset. And it does exactly what they advertise, I had a lot of fun over the weekend.

    The action in Neverwinter is soooo unbelievabley fun compared to DDO its disgusting btw.

    DDO has major flaws, agreed and I completely agree with the Eberon-issue.

    However! I have never heard of any rogue having trouble with detecting traps and I believe I would, I mean, I've played since Closed Beta in EU. If you use third party knowledge (wiki with maps for chests & traps), then that's your playstyle. Same thing can be used for any sngleplayer game, such as Baldur's Gate, but it removes all the challenge and makes the game simple go to point X, gather, proceed, which... well, if that's the way your brother likes to play, cool for him. Personally, I like challenges to be presented to me in-game, rather than looking them up on wiki and being "Oh, before you step in, cast a fire resistance and just walk left through the maze."

    Neverwinter is not claiming to be Dungeons and Dragons online? Well, what's the text "Dungeons & Dragons" infront of it then? I understand very well that they are making an AmmoRPG and throwing the D&D rules out of the window, but that's the issue here. They could've, in the opinion of many D&D fans, done so much more with what they were given, instead they give us this.

    I cannot of course comment on Neverwinter's gameplay, but I quite enjoyed playing DDO in a working party or with just two friends + hirelings. It had the D&D mechanics implemented well enough, even though they took their own freedom with the ruleset. I actually don't see what's so boring with it, except for the slowing progress around levels 12+.

    Also, last but not least, I would argue against your knowledge of the game. I would say that no skill was useless. Diplomacy, Balance, Jump, Tumble and such were even usable in combat. Even Bluff was used by smart rogues and multiclassing was a -very- valid option, ask all those rogue/wizards for example! Or all those small splashes of monk, paladin, sorc etc. Now, they tried to give single classes something to look forward to (capstones and specific class x level requirement enhancements), but it was still a very wise option to consider multiclassing, if you knew what you wanted to play.

     

    Originally posted by Fendel84M
    Lastly, there are no Barbarians in Neverwinter(yet). And how does not having items requiring identification make more sense if by your logic some classes are too dumb to even read a scroll? How are they supposed to know what a magical object is right away if they can't even manage to read?

    And thus you make my point. It makes no sense, if you respect Forgotten Realms lore (or what they made of it...) to give -everyone- the ability to use these scrolls. Now, I can't be sure, but in old AD&D editions warriors and the like could not use scrolls, in 3rd edition there was the skill "use magic device" for classes, which would not know the spell, to try and use the scroll.

    Here comes the immersion vs gameplay problem, what MMOs have never cared about in this regard. There are no cursed items, what do something negative, without giving a warning text when you equip them. All loot is immediately identified. Even the Neverwinter Nights option of taking all unidentified items to store and hitting "identify" button would be a better version than these identification scrolls.

    Eventually this last topic comes down to personal preference. But I say you don't do anything half-way.. If you want an identification system, go all out with it, if not - then don't give us a pointless cash sink obstacle which acts merely as a speed bump.

    We?re all dead, just say it.

  • KaeriganKaerigan Member Posts: 689
    Originally posted by Metanol
    Originally posted by sketocafe

    Thanks for this, though I'm afraid I might have to lower my expectations based on it.

    One thing that confuses me is the level numbers you're saying. Like you have a 27 whatever and get mounts at 20. Am I completely wrong about how levels work in DnD now or does this game not mesh up with it? Last I heard you were pretty much godlike if you made it to level 20, and would be hanging out with Gods and Powers and shit, instead of some woods. What's the deal here? Does it hold to DnD levels and I'm out of date or is it just a "have a level so you can feel progression because your number went up," type thing?

    This game has nothing to do with D&D level scale. Because, as we all know, having only 20 (or by the gods, 30?) levels would be boring. So, now it's 50 levels and WoW-like talent trees (called Feats, which you gain one per level, if I understood right.)

    The 60 levels in Neverwinter mirror the 20 in D&D, or so they said in the MMORPG.com Neverwinter stream last week (meaning, 1 level in Neverwinter equals 1/3 of a level in D&D). I think it's pretty dumb, but on the other hand, it's pretty satisfying to level up.

    <childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>

  • HorrorScopeHorrorScope Member UncommonPosts: 599
    FWIW NDA is still on for Alpha Testers. No NDA for Closed Testers. But why do we have to police ourselves? If any company has an issue with someone breaking NDA, they can take the time to take care of it. It always comes of as jelly from the one fan saying to the other "NDA!!!!".
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